


Technical Assistance

by lost_spook



Category: Sapphire and Steel
Genre: Gen, References to BFA Zero, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-12
Updated: 2012-07-12
Packaged: 2017-11-09 20:33:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/458086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/pseuds/lost_spook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not that Copper doesn’t want to be rescued – he just wishes it was by anyone but Silver…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Technical Assistance

**Author's Note:**

> One spoiler for the BFA _Zero_ (although you don't need to have listened to that to understand the fic).

_Silver: You’ve heard what they’re saying, I presume? About Copper? … That they made him an offer, that he joined them out of his own free will, you’ve heard that rumour, too, haven’t you, Sapphire?  
Sapphire: We’ve all had to face that choice.  
Silver: No, not _Copper_. He wouldn’t break the rules, not even bend them. I doubt he has the imagination.  
Sapphire: Oh, yes… you led him a merry dance by all accounts._  
(Zero)

*

Copper finds Silver irritating, more so than most. He always has. Their abilities overlap in places, and where they do, Silver is faster, better – and happy to make that fact obvious to everyone in a hundred different ways. And yet they’ve found themselves working together too often – Copper, perhaps, is seen as a check to Silver’s haste, and Silver a balance to Copper’s less flexible approach. It’s possible to say they’ve refined each other, but neither of them ever would.

But this time, Silver’s voice is the most welcome thing Copper can imagine, even though he’s sounding smugger than usual.

“Copper,” says Silver, his voice echoing through the dark space, “what are you doing in there?” 

It’s the first sound he’s heard in all the time he’s been standing here. He doesn’t know how long that is. A few minutes stretched out forever, or hundreds of years, or no time at all. He isn’t sure he can speak; he can barely move any more. He only remembers opening a door, and not what happened after. The immobility has spread since, even into his thoughts as everything fades into the darkness.

Silver is still out of his vision, but he steals in a hand, catching hold of Copper’s arm. Immediately, Copper feels as if there’s more space around him. _Come on, Copper. You can move, can’t you?_

_Silver. Where am I?_

Silver loses the teasing note. Irritating as he is, he takes the work seriously. “Inside an engraving, inside a cupboard, inside a locked room.”

_It’s dark._

_It’s an engraving of a church. You seem to be somewhere inside the tower. There’s a window, but it’s night. Gold’s sense of humour, I expect: ‘here’s the church, here’s the steeple…’_

“Gold?” Copper finds he can speak; he can move his fingers. He still can’t separate himself from the place he is in, and it’s an uncomfortable, unaccustomed feeling.

Silver hesitates, and his hold on Copper’s arm tightens. “Yes. I’m afraid so.”

 _Gold_. A sense of regret passes through him. But it isn’t a surprise. 

Silver tugs at his arm; growing impatient. _Move, Copper. Must I do all the work – as usual?_

Copper, for once, nearly laughs. Some things never change. “No.” He manages one step to the side, and a turn of his head, and he can see Silver now, but only dimly in this gloom. Dimly is enough, he thinks, taking in the new waistcoat. _What is that you’re wearing?_

“Come on,” says Silver. “Another step or two…”

Copper concentrates on Silver. He has nearly become a part of his surroundings, but Silver is new, and alien. When he does, he finds that Silver is focused on him; he can see, through him, what is Copper here and what is not, and that is all he needs to take the last step.

There is a blur of light and noise, and then he is standing in a room, with all his senses regained. He has his proper shape, and air, space, and time. Slowly, he smiles. Not the way that Silver does, but an almost undetectable smile of satisfaction. “Yes,” he says. 

“It wouldn’t be the same without you,” says Silver, with both affection and a waspish sting. He gives Copper a quick grin. “And as for what _I’m_ wearing,” he adds, as he brushes invisible dust from Copper’s jacket, part of the grey serge three-piece suit he tends to favour, “at least it’s not the same outfit I’ve been wearing for the last century. I’d say you’re decidedly anachronistic, Copper.”

Copper steps away from him, and turns, briefly putting a hand to Silver’s shoulder. “You were the one missing when I left.”

“Yes, a mistake,” says Silver, with a shrug. He’s moved away in the same instant. “It won’t happen again.”

_I expect it will. You were careless. Again, Silver. How many times have I warned you?_

“Time would have broken in by now if I’d followed all your rules and regulations. ‘Stop. Survey your surroundings. Take every reading you can’,” he mocks. “Wait ten years for the corridor to shatter irrevocably before you do anything hasty. I see it worked very well for you.”

_Silver. You know how necessary these things are._

“For you, perhaps,” he says, and smiles, leaning his head to one side. 

“I can’t explain what happened,” Copper says, knowing it’s never any use pursuing that line of argument. “I did everything correctly –”

“Oh, I believe you.”

“– and yet…” He stops. “But if you say that Gold –”

_Yes._

There’s a sober, shared acknowledgement of that, and what it means. There’s a link: Copper-Silver-Gold that isn’t visible or explicable to anyone else, and for once they are in perfect understanding with each other. Copper moves away, and breaks the moment. It’s uncomfortable: they don’t do this. What they do is disagree, come at everything from different angles. Checks and balances again.

“So what happened to you?”

“A Möbius strip, but, of course,” says Silver, “it couldn’t hold me for long.”

_Arrogance is dangerous, Silver. Look at Gold._

“Arrogance?” says Silver. “No.”

Copper turns and asks the question he’s perfected lately, for times like this. He asks it dryly and casually, but with exactly the right note of pity: “And Sapphire – and Steel?”

“Not currently trapped anywhere, for a change,” says Silver, lightly. “I don’t know what they’d do without me.”

“More arrogance, Silver?” Copper raises a grey eyebrow. Together they give the impression of a tutor or headmaster with his brightest and most irritating pupil, but it’s far more complicated than that; it always has been.

“And I don’t know why you say it like _that_ ,” Silver adds, not able to refrain, even though he knows where the conversation is going: it’s been there enough times before.

“Facts,” says Copper, “details, precision: the matter in hand is everything, Silver. The nature of the assignment is irrelevant in comparison. It certainly does not make a difference which operators.”

“You know that isn’t true,” says Silver, reasonably. “Of course it makes a difference. And I don’t get to choose. We’re sent where we’re most effective. I shouldn’t have to tell you that.”

“You take too much pleasure in the process,” Copper returns, although without any expectation that he’ll finally get Silver to acknowledge his point. “You enjoy the interactions that are merely a requisite component of dealing with a technical issue. It’s a dangerous step. All your attention should be on the necessary repairs.”

“I don’t think anyone else would agree with you,” says Silver, finally becoming irritable in return. “Copper, you don’t change. If I’d remembered how gloomy and joyless you were, I’d have left you where you were.”

Copper turns. _No._

Silver looks down, but he can’t stop the smile. “No. Never.”

“A Möbius strip?”

Silver nods.

“Not very pleasant,” Copper offers.

“Well… no.”

Copper looks back at him. He’s still close enough to Silver both inwardly and outwardly to sense what he’s not saying: that Silver’s universe is a little more reassuring with Copper in it. It’s hard not to smile at that, but he works at masking his own reaction, for he can’t return the compliment. He sometimes thinks that Silver is the most dangerous being he knows. Copper maintains constant discipline, detachment that he believes is vital – one must never step outside of the task and into _self_ – while Silver by his very nature offers the dizzying temptation that a different course might be possible. Copper knows or fears it wouldn’t. Gold, as it appears, is now another example of that.

“You underestimate yourself, you know,” says Silver, his voice soft and serious, the teasing note gone. “You always have.”

_You could be wrong._

_Impossible_. Then Silver shifts from one foot to the other with a sigh of impatience. “I know you could –” He waves a hand in incoherent frustration. “– do more. _Be_ more. But, no, you’re the most stubborn and frustrating being I’ve ever come across!”

Copper thinks that _that_ compliment is one he can return.

Silver’s mouth twitches; he’s fighting another smile. _You know, if we could only swap parts of you and Gold around, we might –_

“Silver,” says Copper, his interruption a wall between Silver and such worrying ideas. He’s instinctively found the lecturing tone again: “You work in your way, and I in mine – and Gold is another case entirely. Now, shall we leave?”

_Are you ready?_

Copper looks around the room. It’s empty, characterless and gloomy, with bare floorboards, and cracked beige walls. He feels… he searches for the word he wants; it’s another sensation he’s unaccustomed to. He feels a weariness pressing down on him, and understands, as he surveys the outer shell of his prison one last time, how near he came to losing everything. _Yes._

Silver leans towards him, and crooks out his arm. Copper hesitates, and then grips it with both hands. As they fade away together, he feels the room finally fold in on itself behind them, as if with a snap, and he’s free.

He’s grateful, of course, but, as they vanish, the irritation remains: why must it be Silver…?


End file.
